Lotto winner charged with welfare fraud found dead

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Amanda Clayton won $1 million in a Michigan lottery last year but continued to collect food stamps. She was found dead on Sept. 29, 2012. (WXYZ)

Lotto winner charged with welfare fraud found dead

Amanda Clayton won $1 million in a Michigan lottery last year but continued to collect food stamps. She was found dead on Sept. 29, 2012. (WXYZ)

Amanda Clayton won $1 million in a Michigan lottery last year but continued to collect food stamps. She was found dead on Sept. 29, 2012. (WXYZ)

ECORSE, Mich. (CNN) — An autopsy has been completed on the Lincoln Park woman who was cutoff from state food assistance after it was revealed that she had won $1,000,000 in the Michigan Lottery.

Amanda Clayton’s body was found in Ecorse Saturday morning. Results from the autopsy are pending.

Friends found the troubled lottery winner lying on the bed holding her one and a half year old daughter.

When she went to a home in Ecorse on Friday night to see her kids, 25-year-old Amanda Clayton appeared confused said her friend’s boyfriend.

“She was already in a bad stage. Her legs were shaking,” said the friend’s boyfriend who did not want to be identified. ”She was going through her prayers. She was eating food with the kids.”

The man said he and his girlfriend were babysitting Amanda’s daughter and young son. It was Amanda’s daughter who couldn’t wake her up.

“She was right next to her sleeping,” the man said. “They were watching movie together. She started crying. And that’s when Rachel walked in and she tried to see what was going on. She flipped her and she was gone.”

Police said Clayton died of an apparent drug overdose and was found at 9 a.m. Saturday. Earlier this year, Clayton was charged with welfare fraud after it was revealed that she received state assistance after winning a lottery jackpot. She later pleaded no contest to the charge and we sentenced to probation.

“What’s $5,500? She paid it off. She paid the money off,” the boyfriend said. He added that she was tormented by the fame and problems that came with winning the lottery.

”So many people tried to take advantage of her, act like they are her friends just to get some money from her,” the man said. “It gets to the point where you start questioning yourself. Are they really my friends or are they using me? What’s the point of having money if you’re not going to have happiness?”

The boyfriend said Clayton did not want the money anymore — buying things for her family and setting up college funds for her children. He said she only had $67,000 of her winnings left.